 Hello everyone and welcome back to Sun and Fun. All week long we've been talking about pilot safety and the joy of flying. This morning's topic is very important, pilot proficiency. Our speaker today is a pilot, a powered pilot. He's also a balloon pilot. One of the things he particularly loves about ballooning is how much you must interface with the elements and really use your skill and not just power to get where you're going. Brian has been a college professor. He is a flight instructor. He's with the FAA more than 10 years and has been with the FAS team for two years, FAS team, FAA safety team. Brian works with Jim Piles in Utah but he's actually part of the outreach programs for the FAAsafety.gov web application. Today, Brian's going to be talking to you about wings pilot proficiency program and give you some support. His main goal in life is to make us all enjoy our flying and enjoy it with the highest possible safety. Please welcome Brian Neville. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you very much. Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you're here so that I can talk to you about the wings pilot proficiency program. As many of you are aware, the wings program changed recently. The old wings program is gone. The new wings program is in place. Has been since May of last year. Almost a year old, not quite, but almost. And so I want to talk a little bit about why this new program, the wings pilot proficiency program, is so much better than the old wings program was. Now that's not to take from the old wings program very much because we've taken the good parts of the wings program, carried them into the new wings program and added to it to make it a much more robust program. In the old wings program, there were 20 phases, but they weren't different. Each year you did exactly the same thing. You flew for three hours and you went to a safety seminar. Or, more correctly, I should say you went to a seminar because there really was no defined topic for safety seminars in the old program. In the new program, you will find it is much more robust. It's not based on time. It's based on, as the title suggests, proficiency. And I think that's the key of the new program. You don't just spend time in an airplane scaring one another perhaps or demonstrating your proficiency. In the new program, you must demonstrate proficiency. We'll see here in just a few minutes some of the components of the new program. Just to give you some statistics and give you some background about why we felt it necessary to change the program. In the old wings program, there were about 17,000 pilots who participated to some degree or another in the year 2005, which is the last really good year we have statistics for. That's out of 680,000 current pilots. That's not a very high percentage, about 2.5%. So it was felt nationally that something needed to be done. So Mr. Jim Piles was asked to automate the wings program. And as he started considering that assignment, he started talking about with others about not just automating the program, but changing it to make it better. And so that's what he ended up doing. Now, I've been involved with the wings program since January of this year, although I was involved part-time in late 2007. In fact, I'm one of the creative writers of the wings program. Let me give you a little bit of background of what it took to actually write this new program. Some of you may know that there are 13 categories and classes of aircraft. Airplane single-engine land, airplane multi-engine land, rotorcraft helicopter and gyrocopter, gliders, balloons, airships, including powered parachutes and weight shift control aircraft. And there are five pilot certificate levels, sport, recreational, private, commercial and ATP. And we had to consider instrument ratings and we had to consider the flight instructor certificates. And then on top of all of that, we had to look at accident causal factors in each of those categories and classes and certificate level. As you might imagine, it took quite some time to review all of that information. I was able to look at statistics for the entire fiscal year of 2006 and half of 2007. And I made some interesting discoveries. For example, many of you probably imagine that approaches and landings are an area that requires some additional attention on the part of pilots. Well, that's true with airplanes. It's not true with balloons or gliders. So I had to devise a system and in discussion with Jim Piles and others, I'm being asked if the computer fell asleep and it did. So here in a moment, I'll be able to click on that and we'll go to it. Hopefully I'll be able to go to that when time requires. In any case, as I was saying, in designing the program, we had to look at what would make wings a better system. And we discovered that when we look at accident causal factors, we make some interesting discoveries. And one of those is that every aircraft category or class is not the same. Now they're gonna come up here and do some technical things and that's okay. I'll continue to talk while they do that. The wings program, the old wings program, you may remember required one hour of takeoffs and landings, one hour of air work, and one hour of basic instruments, plus a seminar. And you did that year after year after year, the same thing. And we discovered some interesting things. We went around and talked to flight instructors, for example, and found that flight instructors didn't like to participate in the old wings program, and we asked why. We discovered they didn't like to do it because they were required to make a log book entry when they flew with pilot, no matter their proficiency level. So you might have a proficient pilot, you might have a pilot that you wouldn't go flying with, a second time, and yet the instructor was required to make that log book entry. Well, in the new wings program, because it's based on proficiency, the instructor still makes a log book entry, but does not make that endorsement that says the pilot is proficient until they are. So one of the questions that I commonly get is, well, how long will it take to do this? This is gonna cost more money. It's gonna take more time. Well, the answer to that is maybe, maybe not. For example, if you fly out of an airport that does not have a control tower and you're a proficient pilot, how long will it take you to demonstrate three takeoffs and landings and go around? Well, many pilots could do that in 20 or 30 minutes. You can see right there, we've saved half the time that was required under the old program. So the question about, is this gonna cost me more? Can the answer be no? Yes, it can. Can the answer be yes, it will cost more? If you are not proficient, the new program requires proficiency and you must fly at a certain level before you get signed off by a flight instructor. So we anticipate that flight instructors will now be more enthusiastic about being involved in the new wings program because it does require a demonstration of proficiency. Well, something else that happened with the wings program, you recall I said that Mr. Piles was asked to automate the program. Well, at the same time, he changed the program in connection with others. And so we did two things at the same time. Not always a good thing to do, but it was felt necessary at the time. We automated the program and we changed the program. And so this has caused some consternation on the part of pilots. We like to say, well, the first time you got in an airplane and looked at it, there were a lot of instruments out there and knobs and dials and switches and all these things. And you really didn't know what they were all for, but within just a very short period of time, you knew what everything did, when it was required, when you had to use it. It's the same thing with the new wings program. It will take some time to get up to speed. Now, I anticipate the average pilot can start to use the new wings program in less than a half hour if they don't look at too much of the detail. And that's okay. We have a lot of detail on the page in a minute we'll go to my wings page so that you can see some of that. But I wanna set the stage for doing that. Let me ask a question. If you have an airplane and you fly it one day and it makes a certain sound that you don't recognize, what are you going to do? Well, many pilots will engage the services of a mechanic to look at the airplane. So let me give you three scenarios. There are three mechanics on your field and you don't know them very well because you just moved there, let's say. And you take your airplane to the first one and he says, hey, I saw a picture of one of those once which you'll notice that I have a mechanic certificate so I can work on your airplane. Even though I've not touched one before, I did see a picture of one once. Well, how many of you would choose that mechanic to work on your airplane? Probably not. All right, let's look at the second mechanic. So you go to him, he's got a certificate on the wall also and he says, you know, I actually walked around one of those airplanes once and I opened the cowling and looked inside. So I think I could work on your airplane. I'm a pretty good mechanic. How many of you would choose this mechanic? Well, how many of you would choose this mechanic over the first mechanic? Probably. Well, let me give you a third choice. You go to the third mechanic and he says, oh yes, I worked on one of those just last week. I think I know what your problem is. In fact, I have lots of experience with this particular make and model. I'd be happy to work on your aircraft. It will cost you a little bit more. You know, the first mechanic only charged $100. Second mechanic, $200. Now this mechanic wants $350 to fix your bird. Now let me ask, which mechanic are you going to choose? Well, I think it's obvious. You want to choose the mechanic who is not only legal, current, but really proficient. Now let's relate that to Pilots. I see there's a gentleman here on the front row who has his daughter with him today. He's a pilot, she's not. She's going to start training here in the near future. Let me ask you young lady, would you go fly with your father if the last time he flew his airplane was six months ago? No, not really. She's pretty sharp. So sir, what can you do to encourage your daughter to go fly with you? Well, I think the answer is you can go do something so that you are more proficient. And that's what the Wings program is designed to do. In fact, I think I now want to look at the page in the system that we call the My Wings page, pilot proficiency program. You can see at the top of this page are some informative pieces of text. In fact, it refers to a 21 minute program. It's actually a video program that explains the Wings program. Now I have been meeting with pilots across the country and discovered that some pilots really appreciate this 21 minute program. I have found other pilots who say 21 minutes, I can't sit still for that long a period. So it's there if you want it. If you don't, you read on. If you don't want to do that, you click on a button and discover what it does. I've learned I have seven children as a matter of fact and they're kind of geeks when it comes to computers. They click on a button just to see what it does. I say, well, didn't you read the instructions? Well, no, I don't have time for that. I just click on it and see what it does. If it's not what I want, then I come back and do something else. Well, all right, we hear the pilots and we're going to change our system. We're going to keep all of the detail there, but we're going to activate a simplified version. Now, we expect this within the next 30 to 60 days, so don't look for it tomorrow. But within 30 to 60 days, we're going to have a simplified version and a detailed version of the Wings program at FAAsafety.gov. We feel that this will touch both groups of users. We know there's a large group in the middle that will figure out how to use the system, never email us and ask for tech support and just figure it out. And that's okay, that's good. We have another group that, man, they're just highly proficient at anything electronic and they all make it work for them. Then we have another group and we'll simplify it for everyone. Now, I want to point out that there is help. If you follow the mouse right here, click here for Wings Pilot Proficiency Program Help. So I'm going to do that. And here we see we have many opportunities to find out how to use the system. The first thing that someone needs to do is register on FAAsafety.gov. If you go back to the home page, you'll see there's a link that says get registered. Click here and it walks you through the steps. Once you're in the system, we have a Wings Quick Start Guide, Wings Made Easy with Pictures. And if you're an instructor, validating Wings Credit, Made Easy. So this is very useful to first-time users. If you're not certain what an acronym might be, for example, not many people know that PPL stands for Powered Parachute Land. Although I understand in Europe, PPL stands for Private Pilot License. So you have to look at these things occasionally. I want to come down to this grid. You remember earlier I said that the old program had 20 phases. Well, this new program, this new pilot proficiency program has three phases. The basic phase, the advanced phase, and the master phase. Within each of those phases, we have two tracks. There's a knowledge track and a flight track. So just like the old program, you have to fly and you have to do some things on the ground. Here's a couple of differences. Notice in the flight track, there are three boxes here. In the old program, it was three hours. We call these three credits. In the knowledge program, there are also three credits required. In the old program, just one. In this new program, three. So a total of six. I want you to notice that two of these up here are red and one is green. Same thing on the flight side. Two red, one green. So let me explain the difference. When we analyzed accidents, we discovered some commonalities. For example, you know that the number one reason airplanes have problems resulting in accidents is decision-making skills, which is part of pre-flight planning. So this first required knowledge subject is aeronautical decision-making. Every pilot must complete that credit. What do you suppose the second knowledge item is? Pre-flight planning. Every pilot must complete a subject on pre-flight planning. And then we give pilots the opportunity to design their own elective credit. For example, if you fly in Kansas, you're not going to have the same kinds of weather challenges that we have in the mountain west in Utah where I live. We don't get as many tornadoes. We don't have as high a humidity. All of these are differences. And so you get the opportunity to learn more about what affects you most. Now this is also true in the flight track. What is the number one item in flight that is a problem for pilots? Apparently, based on accident statistics, takeoffs and landings are. So every pilot must, oh, let me back up. Let me correct myself. Every airplane pilot must demonstrate takeoff and landing skills. Remember earlier I said that when we did the analysis, we discovered that aircraft categories and classes did not have the same causal factors for accidents. In balloons, for example, turns out that obstructions are a problem. Wires, antennas, trees, those kinds of things. And so these required subjects are different for each category and class as they should be. If we want this program to really be effective, we must address those topics that are important to you as an individual flying a specific category and class of aircraft. And so we've designed the program that way. Well, there are six core, I'm sorry, six subjects that are required. Two flight, two knowledge, are what we call core subjects and two elective subjects. Notice that the advanced phase has one core subject, knowledge and flight, and two elective subjects. Now, we are often asked what is the real difference between the basic phase, the advanced phase, and the master phase, and do I have to do one before the other? Well, to answer that question first, yes, you do. Although you can work on any phase at any time, you must complete the basic phase before you can get the advanced phase or the master phase. Now, when we decided to make this proficiency based, we had to discover what standard we were going to use. So if you think about that, there's a series of publications that the FAA publishes called practical test standards. Because they're universally available and generally common format in every category and class, we decided to use the practical test standards. So the basic phase generally uses the private pilot practical test standards as the proficiency standard. Now, sport pilots and recreational pilots use those test standards. What about a commercial pilot wanting to earn the basic phase? What does he or she use? Well, again, the basic phase is based on generally demonstrating proficiency to at least the private pilot level if you hold a higher certificate. An ATP, while he must demonstrate his ATP proficiency for the basic phase, the private pilot standards are what are used. The advanced phase, generally speaking, uses the commercial standards. The master phase generally uses ATP commercial instrument, CFI. And the reason I say generally, again, is because every category and class is different. For example, there is no ATP for a sport pilot. There's just no standard, so we did something else. So I hope this is really clear to you that you must complete the basic phase before you can earn the other advanced or master phases. You must complete all six core and elective subjects in both the flight and knowledge tracks in order to earn that phase. Sometimes I'm asked, well, what if I complete the advanced phase, but I'm missing one item in the basic phase? We design the system so that an elective subject can replace a lower elective subject requirement. So if you finish the advanced elective subject and did not finish the basic elective subject, that will count, and you will earn the basic phase, if that's all that was remaining. Well, now what happens when you earn that basic elective subject? The advanced subject bounces back up where it belongs, which is really convenient. Now, this next grid is what you see when you actually go to your My Wings page. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back to My Wings, and I have logged in to an actual pilot. That happens to be me this morning. And I wanna point out a few more things on this page. First, we are asked, how long is a credit valid? Well, we put it right up here. A credit is valid for 12 months. That's just like the old program. The old program of credit was good for 12 months. I guess I need to correct myself. In the new program, they're valid for 365 days. I hope I didn't confuse anyone there. But because we automated the Wings program, we could make it expire on the exact day that you previously qualified. So in this timeline, you can see where exactly you earned the credits and which ones are getting close to expiration. For example, you can see here, I have one that is due in May. And if I hover over it with my cursor, you can see the Art of Aeronautical Decision Making is what will expire in May. And if I don't complete that, then I lose my basic phase qualification. And again, if you hover over any of these, it'll tell you what you earned in that month for that phase, for any of the phases. Now, when I was writing this program, I discovered pretty soon that mentally, I wasn't sure if I could complete something as a pilot. So I actually went out and flew in an airplane to see if I could actually accomplish this. And I could. You will see that I have three check marks on the knowledge track, three green check marks on the flight track. And as you might expect, I have completed the basic phase. Now, just this morning while I was waiting to speak to you, I finished the advanced phase of wings. Occasionally you'll hear me say level of wings. We can use the terms interchangeably. So you can see here I completed my advanced phase on 413. And so my wings phase will expire on 413 of 09, 365 days away. Now, what about my flight review? Well, the regulation 6156 says when you complete a phase of wings, you have met the requirement for a flight review. So you see here that my flight review now expires at the end of the month, two years from now, 24 months. Because I completed a phase of wings, see it says that here on 41308. Okay, it's obvious to some, not to others. What if I lose this credit? Is my flight review still valid? Well, yes it is, why? Because the regulation says when you complete a phase of wings, you have met the requirement for a flight review. And a flight review is valid for 24 months. Now, I happen to have participated in the old wings program. And so our new system allowed me to record that I had earned phase 20 in the old wings program. All right, so that kind of discusses this really neat page. Now, we get some questions about, well, what does all this mean? K, R, something, something one. Well, if you look here, this code is broken down for you. You don't need a decoder ring, it's right here for you. The R means it's required, which is one of our core subjects. The E means it's an elective subject. Of course they're all required. The K and the F, probably as obvious by now, knowledge and flight. And then we had to have some way to differentiate between the six credits. So because in the basic phase, we have two required items, we call them basic one and basic two. It's a little hard to read, but we'll change that so it's easier to read. And then just basic. So knowledge required, basic one. Knowledge, elective basic, flight elective basic. Well, what I'd like to do is show you what makes up this particular item. So I click here in the box and it'll take me to a page that describes every activity that qualifies to earn that credit. And you'll notice here as I scroll down, there are lots of things there. Because of the way I set up my profile, it displays eight items. I want to point out there's a dollar sign right here. Yes, we do allow training providers, such as Cessna and others, I'll just say at this point, to offer courses that do cost you money, but you don't have to choose those. In fact, a future enhancement will allow you to turn off an option so that you don't see any of the forecast courses. But here you can see airplane, multi-engine land, take-offs, landings, basic instruments. Airplane, single-engine land, take-offs, landings, and go-arounds. Lighter than air, balloon take-offs, launches, and landings. Well, if I choose one of those, I click here. The next page that comes up describes exactly what I need to do as a pilot to complete this particular task. And you'll note that there's only four items there. Well, if you look at the practical test standard for take-offs and landings for airplane, multi-engine land, which is the one I pulled up here, there are many more items in that area of operation in the practical test standards. Why didn't we choose all of those items? If you think back, what did we base this new program on? Accident causal factors. So all we require you to do is demonstrate proficiency in those tasks that have contributed to accidents across the nation. So that's why there are only four items here for airplane, multi-engine land pilots. We even provide a suggested endorsement that an instructor can use to record in a pilot's logbook when this particular task has been proficiently demonstrated. Now, is this endorsement required? Well, no, it's a suggested format. You can make up one of your own in fact because the regulation only says a training record must have a recorded entry. You could actually print this page. See, there's a link here for a print-friendly version. Print this page. Record the pilot's name. Put the date in. The instructor fills in all of this information. Now, this page becomes your proof that you accomplish this task. Pretty easy. When it is finished, you come back to this page and you click here where it says request credit. Click here now. Now, occasionally, we find instructors who say, but I don't know what all of this is based on. How do I know that this is really what I want to be doing with this pilot? So, we have created syllabus materials. And I'm gonna click on this so that you can see what one looks like. And you'll see in this particular case, the syllabus describes what has to occur for every category in class. Notice as I scroll down that every category in class is not the same size. For example, the glider has six items. If you look at the gyroplane, there are five items. If you look at the helicopter, there are seven items. So, work with me. Tell me again why this is so. It's because every category in class is not the same. We designed the program to address accident causal factors. And that's why each one is different. Let me read one paragraph. Proficiency must be demonstrated in the task listed below as a minimum. Remember, the FAA is a minimums-based organization. So, if you want to do more as a flight instructor or a pilot, you certainly can, and we encourage that. But you have to do it in an appropriate category in class. If you're not a helicopter pilot, you should not be doing the helicopter task because you won't be proficient at it. Now, here's an assumption we make, and it is based on proficiency. Pilots demonstrating that level of proficiency and incorporating such skills in their flying habits will have mitigated that topic as an accident causal factor. And that's the whole intent of the program, is it not, to reduce accidents. We have put links on this page to every practical test standard. It doesn't go out to a static document. It goes out to the FAA website so that you always receive the most current information. All right, come back to this page. If I click on request credit here, this has caused some consternation, so I want to go through this quickly, but briefly. I'm going to click on that page as though I'm a pilot. Here's the page that comes up, and there's only a minimum amount of information required. First is a date. You can either type the date in using a format that's demonstrated for you, or you click on the little calendar and pick a date. I'm going to pick today. And then, someone has to confirm that you met those requirements. Typically, that would be the flight instructor with whom you flew, and you would type his or her email address in here, and then click select, and their name would show up here. Well, let's say that either you don't have their email address or they don't want to give it to you. They signed your logbook, but they don't want to give you their email address. Well, that's okay. You come over here where it says find a validator. Click on that box. Now, notice that it called up my default zip code. I'm going to do something different. I'm going to say, well, I'm going to leave it there. That's easier. I can choose a radius, you know, how far away from my zip code does that instructor or validator live. I'm going to choose 25 miles. And am I looking for a flight instructor, a fast team representative, or a fast team program manager? Generally, we're looking for CFI, so I'll leave that. And then I click on the button that says search. And guess what comes up? A list of flight instructors who live within 25 miles of zip code 84116. Now, because it's looking in the entire system, it takes a moment to come up, but notice that all those names show up. Look at that. That's everybody that's a flight instructor that lives within 25 nautical miles of my zip code. Well, I'm going to pick one. Let's say, oh, I'm going to pick on Mr. Piles. Where's his name? Look at that, James Edward Piles. That's his name. I click on it, a little bug in the system. It doesn't go away. But if you come back up, it says please wait. We'll fix this, by the way, so that it automatically comes back up. Please wait. We're waiting. All right, what happened? Now his name shows up right here. And when I click submit for validation, two things happen. One, an email goes to Mr. Piles. And now he knows he needs to go validate your request for credit. Secondly, you get an email that says you requested that. That way you can both keep track of what's going on. I want to point out that it's possible for any flight instructor to validate any credit request. So how does that work? Well, what happens is the person who's doing the validating is not saying I actually did the work. What it says, and it says that right here, it does say that right here, before credit is given for accredited activities, they must be validated. Well, I need to fix that. It doesn't say that there. Sorry, says it way up here. In any case, let me go on. I need to fix that. Sometimes it's interesting to work with these programs in front of an audience, but I will fix that so that the correct language is there. On another page, it says, when you validate a credit, it doesn't say that you actually perform the work, but it does say that you have confirmed that the individual has performed the work. In other words, you looked at a logbook entry, you looked at an endorsement, and then you can validate the request. Well, all right, so that gets us pretty much through the process. You see how quickly that went, and I know I left some of you a little confused, but when you're actually pushing the buttons yourself, it becomes much more clear. Let me now go back to my wings page. It is working, there we go. When the credit is validated, the green check mark shows up to show that it's completed. When it, when you are working in an area and it's not complete, this little dot shows up so that you know what you need to accomplish next. If you wanna do that, you click on the binoculars, it takes you to the page we looked at previously, and you'll see that there's nothing there to complete the master phase, and that's correct right now. We're working really hard to add courses and activities so that pilots can complete these phases. So we have the basic phase ready for all pilots and the advanced phase. We're next going to work on the master phase. We have three of these boxes, but not the fourth one ready to go. And I apologize for that, but there's only so much work that two men can do. Now, you may recall earlier that one of the first things you have to do in the program is set up your airman profile. So I wanna look at that just quickly. You're asked basically to fill out four areas. What category and class of aircraft do you have on your certificate? What pilot certificate level do you have or would you like to work toward? The date of your last flight review, if you know it, and if you participated in the old wings program, what level phase, level or phase were you awarded? And that's all there is to it. You click save and your profile is saved. And you can come back to your My Wings page. Well, let's say you've been working in the program for a while and you wanna know what your progress is. We provide that view, My Accredited Activity History. You click that link. And again, I invite and encourage you to come to the site and click the buttons. You can't break anything. If I had any activities that were pending validation, they would show up in this area. This other area shows all the activities that I have accomplished and will show yours as well. One of the instructors I flew with actually rejected this activity by error. So I reapplied for it and he finally approved it. But anyway, you get a history that will show you exactly where you are and what you have accomplished. So that's an excellent form. Now, what if you wanna attend a safety seminar? How do you find out where the next safety seminar is? Notice on the left navigation bar, there's something titled events and seminars. If I click on that, a display page will come up that defaults to my home zip code. And there they are. These are all passed. Now, I'm going to demonstrate this in a different way because I set my profile differently so it doesn't look very clear. I'm going to type in a zip code that I'm familiar with, which is my office. And I'm gonna say, I wanna see everything that is occurring within 50 miles. And then I'm going to search upcoming and recent events. The reason we put recent events there is because you may have gone to an event, forgot to sign the attendance roster, and now you want credit. Notice right here, there's a green check mark. You can, if you're an instructor, you can click on that and give someone credit for an event. If you're the pilot, you click on the pen, the red pen, it says request credit for this event, and then you can get the credit after the fact. Well, note here that there's an event coming up on Tuesday, April 29th in Salt Lake City, Utah, titled Top Five Mistakes Pilots Make. Notice there's one coming up on May 17th in Park City, Utah. It tells you a little bit about this information. For example, there's a map available to show you where it is. This event is a fly in. I happen to know that that's a balloon event and we're actually going to fly out of that location rather than into that location. So you can search almost anywhere you want. For example, I could search in Delaware to see if there are any events. Of course, I can only use one search item at a time, so I'll do that. Nothing in Delaware coming up. Let's pick one where I suspect there would be. Let's pick Colorado, and just this quickly, you see a list of all the events coming up in Colorado. If you know the airport identifier, you can type it here and identify any events that are happening within the confines of an airport or nearby an airport. Now, I know that I've covered a lot of material here in a short period of time, so let me go back and summarize just to a certain degree. To participate in the Wings program, you have to be signed up on faasafety.gov, and that is the internet address, faasafety.gov. When you get there, you find this page and it says get registered with faasafety.gov. You click there, you have to answer two questions. What is your email address? Now, a lot of people have said, why the email address? We needed some way to communicate with you. At the same time, we needed some way to identify you. Why? Because if you participate in the Wings program and earn a phase of Wings, you now have met a regulatory requirement, the flight review. And so we have to have some definitive way to identify you, and the email address is how we do that. So what if a husband and wife share an email address? It won't work. One of them will have to use that address. The other will have to get one of the many free email addresses that are available on the internet. Do you hold a current airman certificate? We're trying to work this system so that we can identify airmen specifically. Right now it works about 98% of the time. So if you check yes, our system goes out to the FAA registry and goes ding, is this airman in your list? If the answer's yes, your information is brought to our system. If the answer's no, then it comes back and says, sorry, your information is not here. It may also be that the registry does not consider you a current airman, a current pilot. That might be for a number of reasons. One, you moved and didn't tell them. Two, you let your medical certificate expire. Three, you moved out of the country. Some reasons. In any case, you can always register by checking the box. No, and then register and change your account preferences. Once you're in the system, you go to your home page on fa-safety.gov. This is what it looks like. It always displays some upcoming events in your area. You sign up for Wings, and then you eventually get to your My Wings page, and you begin participating by clicking on the box for the task that you want to accomplish. I clicked on the first one in the knowledge area. I've already told you that the art of aeronautical decision making is a required core subject that every pilot must accomplish. Well, all right. In the very near future, yes. Do you have a, I'm going back to the previous page. No, the top one is not. As I indicated previously, a future enhancement will put a button up here that says, do you want to see activities that cost money? And you can say yes or no. In this case, if you said no, then all of these topics would not show up, this top one would show up, and the Civil Air Patrol would show up. And so you would be able to choose this one item, which is a required subject for completing the Wings program. If you want to accomplish one of these other items that cost money, you simply click on it and accomplish whatever is required by that provider. All right, as I started to say earlier, in the very near future, we are adding a complete system for mechanics, aviation maintenance technicians. And they will find that information in this area. It's not there yet. It's a future enhancement. We expect it within the next few months. We expect to see that. We also are going to simplify the My Wings page so that you can get to work on your Wings proficiency flying much more easily and much more quickly. You will be able to see seminars that are presented in a format that really, to use a phrase, much more user-friendly. This works, this is good, but you notice there's 341 events here. So we're going to make the search just a little bit easier for you to find those events. I also want to point out that there are resources available on this site, fa-safety.gov. Here's that page. For example, pilots, if you click on that, you'll see all of these pages, online resources that are available for pilots to refer to. We also have additional online courses in our Aviation Learning Center. You click on the Learning Center library. Let's say that you want to learn something about weather. You go to the search right here at the top, click on the arrow, and pretty quickly it shows you what is on our site, fa-safety.gov, that discusses to some degree the topic of weather. And there they are. There actually are, if you look here, 171 items on our site that, to some degree or another, discusses weather. And you could look at any one of those. Well, to summarize, what is the goal of fa-safety.gov and especially the WINGS program? The goal is aviation safety, reducing accidents, and making you, the pilot, a safer and in reality, a more proficient pilot. So I thank you for coming today and that is a really quick look at the WINGS program. Thank you. Now we have a few minutes left. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. All right. Very good. Thank you once again for coming. And it will be fun to see how it plays out with all the new enhancements. Come on up, people. Let's talk to Brian and see how we're doing. Hello. Good to meet you. Good job, Brian. Thank you. Thank you. About information. I thought there isn't there.